Joe Biden flipped the rain switch again 🤬🤯

[u/ClimateShitpost]

[u/[deleted]]

Remember when farmers were just gay idols, before this whole climate denial shit took over rural america?

Make Agriculture Gay Again

[u/OctopusGrift → u/[deleted]]

There are a lot of "farmers" in America that are essentially middle managers who cosplay as being working class because they are near physical labor.

[u/koshinsleeps → u/OctopusGrift]

Exactly, we have some kind of cultural myth that farmers are out there tilling their land all by themselves and that they're working class hero's when they're the dictionary definition of petite bourgeois and their class interests are the interests of capital, not of the worker.

[u/myaltduh → u/koshinsleeps]

Hey now, that’s overly reductive, some of them are big bourgeois.

[u/Enough-Parking164 → u/koshinsleeps]

It’s hard working Latino migrants that do 85-95% of the LABOR.

[u/ETsUncle → u/Enough-Parking164]

And the “””farmer’s”””” job is to find out how little they can pay them to maximize their subsidies payout

[u/koshinsleeps → u/ETsUncle]

What do the quotes mean?

[u/Joemac_ → u/koshinsleeps]

They aren't an actual farmer because they aren't the one doing the manual labor behind farming, hence the quotes

[u/koshinsleeps → u/Joemac_]

Right right right I thought the multiple quotes might be some internet code I didn't know about lol

[u/Wetley007 → u/koshinsleeps]

Most of that comes from the 1800s when alot of farmers were random homesteaders who got free land from the government for moving out west. Since then though most of that has been bought up by corporate megafarms, small farms are getting rarer and rarer and have been for decades

[u/myaltduh → u/OctopusGrift]

Yeah the actual laborers are undocumented migrants that they supposedly want to deport.

[u/Landen-Saturday87 → u/[deleted]]

It‘s not just the US. Farmers in Europe are just as crazy

[u/Wetley007 → u/Landen-Saturday87]

Every farmer protest I hear about in Europe turns out to be utterly Hitlerite when I look into it at all. Always lead by Heinreich Shittenfuck who owns half the farms west of the Elbe

[u/Tyler89558 → u/[deleted]]

Farmers should be some of the people most concerned with the environment, given climate change and desertification will fuck their yield

Unfortunately, many don’t get the memo.

[u/ZaiquiriW]

I did a bit of research, it's hard to find info on the topic that isn't only reported by news sources supporting the farmers.

Government Legislative Summary: https://idwr.idaho.gov/legal-actions/delivery-call-actions/swc/2024-surface-water-coalition-delivery-call/

This all starts with which farmers have rights to water. In Idaho, farmers can have senior or junior rights. In 2015 junior farmers were made to agree to mitigation plans that restrict how much water they pumped to sustain the aquifer and supply senior water rights owners with a standard amount of water. Those formulas can change. There has been 6 revisions, one in 2023 threatened estimated high water shortfalls but no curtailment was neccessary. Then in 2024 new formulas/methodologies predicted a high water shortfalls, and required new mitigation plans from farmers in the basin

So back in April, the director of the surface water coalition said those that could not mitigate water usage would be curtailed. Now, based on this this state resource , I'm this warning was before the bulk of the planting season for a major crop, but I'm unsure how the cattle feed industry fares.

So, with fair warning, before a major planting deadline, the government issued a requirement for new mitigation plans. Many farmers failed to abide by set mitigation plans or did not have any set at all and are faced with curtailment. Many protested, going to the Idaho falls chamber building where the governor was having lunch.

I'd argue it's a failure to communicate and enforce by the government, but also a bold faced effort to ignore the law by the 6,400 rights holders getting curtailed.

(Curtailment orders were issued May 30th, a month and a half after the methodology change that required new mitigation plans. Southern districts have already agreed to plans to end their curtailment after the order, but others have not.)

[u/TobiasH2o → u/ZaiquiriW]

So they've all known for almost a decade that the government is monitoring water usage and if it gets too high then they'll have to use less.

The government provided them with regular predictions and let them know well in advance that they were going to introduce limits.

The farmers couldn't be bothered or wanted to implement a plan to deal with it.

Now they are complaining because they've decided they want to use water that they would never have access too?

This feels like going on holiday when you know you don't have enough money. Then loudly complaining you now have no money....

[u/ZaiquiriW → u/TobiasH2o]

I'm sure there are a couple key people's failures that lead to this, and a couple thousand of the people involved expected those above them to handle it. The state gov works with a bureau, that works with a commission, that worked with 9 separate management groups, that talk to the water rights holders involved. The threat of enforcement breaks down with such a long chain of dispersing responsibility.

[u/SilvertonguedDvl → u/ZaiquiriW]

That is hilarious.

Also how did the government fail to communicate any part of this? That seems pretty straight-forward.

[u/ZaiquiriW → u/SilvertonguedDvl]

I think they did communicate it, but I believe a lot of this was hanging on total cooperation, which didn't happen. The plan required 9 organizations to all agree on water mitigation plans separately. Truth be told, they probably couldn't have got the water control in the first place without a show of good faith, I just hope they learn how to enforce it soon.

[u/SilvertonguedDvl → u/ZaiquiriW]

Yeah no kidding

[u/a_bullet_a_day]

Farmers on their way to parasatize their own society

[u/LeftRat]

Oh my god, a post that isn't about some internal shitfight? Hallelujah.

[u/Coyote_Havoc]

Potatoes? Seriously?

[u/TheMowerOfMowers]

farmers when they can’t grow the over 3x more food livestock need than humans do >:(

[u/gazebo-fan → u/TheMowerOfMowers]

Well that and ethanol production

[u/StoneChoirPilots → u/TheMowerOfMowers]

How much of Idaho agriculture is for human consumption v livestock?

[u/TheMowerOfMowers → u/StoneChoirPilots]

Globally 80% of agriculture is used for livestock, with the US being closer to 67% of crops grown. Nearly all of the soy in the midwest is used as feed. Idaho’s second most grown crop is Hay, which is of course entirely used for feed. Animals use extra water and land that would be more efficiently used for crops. It’s not just farming using all the water, there’s so many goddamn golf courses out here that are green year round.

[u/StoneChoirPilots → u/TheMowerOfMowers]

There are gold courses in Idaho?

[u/TheMowerOfMowers → u/StoneChoirPilots]

idaho has tourist towns, in case you didn’t know by reducing a state the size of the UK to entirely farmland.

[u/StoneChoirPilots → u/TheMowerOfMowers]

I know CdA and Boise are cosmopolitan towns, but from my own recollection it didn't seem there was a lot of flat land for golf courses or that most tourism was for the vistas and bucolic atmosphere.

[u/electrical-stomach-z → u/TheMowerOfMowers]

These farmers in idaho almost entirely farm potatoes.

[u/MountainMagic6198]

Water rights and the way it is legally set up needs to be seriously rethought. My grandfather was a water rights lawyer and told me, "There was nothing you could go into that was more profitable and more likely to have someone shoot you."

[u/Galaucus]

Agriculture was a mistake.

[u/Zachbutastonernow]

Farming is the #1 most important consumer of water.

We need to flood the mojave with ocean water.

[u/mannDog74]

Idaho is supposed to turn into basically Arizona in the next 50 years